


Watch the pattern take form

by voodoochild



Category: Ashes to Ashes
Genre: Coping Mechanisms, Dom/sub, F/M, Infidelity Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-16
Updated: 2011-03-16
Packaged: 2017-10-17 00:59:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short guide to Alex Drake's terrible coping mechanisms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watch the pattern take form

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Petra's song prompt of Vienna Teng's "Watershed", which will always and forever be my go-to Keats song. Thanks to Em for letting me poach a bit of a longer story we've been kicking around for this.

_I've done this many times before you  
Watch the pattern take form, children, your time has come_

Alex only does this when kids are involved.

Like clockwork, you can watch her spiral; bad case, down to Luigi's for a bottle or two of wine, draping herself over Hunt, back to hers for some ill-advised sex with Hunt, and about two hours later, knocking on his door.

Though he doesn't approve of her self-destructive tendencies, he can't argue with the results. He gets her with every pretense stripped away, and all shame left on the floor of her flat with Gene Hunt asleep in her bed. It surprised him at first, that she'd fuck and run, leaving Hunt alone to come to him, but he's realized that she's afraid of allowing either of them to see too much of herself.

She falls apart with Hunt, fucks him hard and fast and bruising, needing to forget. She controls the encounters, with him subject to her burn but getting a great lay out of the bargain.

And then she comes to Jim.

She doesn't bother washing, changing, anything more than covering the bruises and brushing her hair back into place. She's a shaking, barely-contained mess, and all she wants is to be held, comforted. Told what to do and how to do it. And he takes the ruin that Hunt and the job make of her and washes her clean. Builds her good as new so that only he can see the cracks.

Her parents. Her lost daughter. Her confusion of where she is and what she's doing. He knows they're there, and when the time comes, he'll break her open again.

It's for her own good.


End file.
